The Constant Drumming
by TimeLordParadox
Summary: The Master has been hearing the sound of drums since he was a small child, throughout all of his regenerations yet he never mentioned them to anyone. How did each of his incarnations cope?
1. The Drumming

**Plot:** The Master has been hearing the sound of drums since he was a small child, throughout all of his regenerations yet he never mentioned them to anyone. How did each of his incarnations cope?

**Warning: **This will contain spoilers to the End of Time.

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**Doctor Who**

**The Constant Drumming**

By TimeLordParadox

(aka Ross Pickering)

**The Drumming**

1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, the noise! The drumming! The constant drumming! 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. The constant, never ending drumbeat! He held his head and shut his eyes, it hurts, oh it hurts, dying hadn't hurt as much as this! 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. It started fading but it never, ever left him it was always there somewhere rattling around in his mind like a desease, a cancer.

He took a bite of meat from the bone in his hands as he sat in the darkness surrounded by nothing but dust and decay in this abandoned factory. He had once been prime minister of this stupid country and for a while he was the ruler of this entire backward world of humans. He looked down at the bone he was eating from, the people of this world were nothing but food to him now, feeding his slowly dying body, starving off the inevitable but he needed a more permanent solution to return.

He had been resurrected from the grave by a group of loyal followers, loyal to the words and the books of Harold Saxon, the old prime minister and what he called himself in his current incarnation. He thought he had calculated everything perfectly for his return should he somehow die before his great plan was finished. He had calculated down to the last detail but one, human fear. Human fear that somehow, somewhere the evil genius of Harold Saxon would return stronger then before, because of this human fear they had managed to calculate how to prevent his resurrection, only they didn't prevent it, here he was! He was alive and they and others around them had died for this error. But it had an effect on him.

He couldn't regenerate, he had tried to, tried to force a regeneration and had gone to almost any lengths to trigger the healing process that would rebuild his body into a fitter one but it wouldn't trigger, he'd tried everything except attempting to commit suicide which he was sure wouldn't work. That was when he noticed these strange abilities he now seemed to posses, he was faster then before, he could leap great distances into the air, he was even able to fire pure energy directly from his finger tips. This meant this body was ripped open, the energy required to regenerate him was still there inside him but it was constantly switched 'on' in an attempt to keep this resurrected body afloat. Every single time he used these 'powers' he used up the regeneration energy keeping him alive which he had to replace or he would die again, which is why he had decided to feed on humans. He took another bite and ripped more meat from the bone he was feasting on.

How had he been reduced to this? Feeding off humans, stupid, fat, inferior humans, he took another bite from the bone. There were loads of them, plenty of humans to feed him to keep him afloat for centuries but eventually they will discover him, what he is doing and would mass against him and even with his powers he wouldn't be able to stop them finishing him off for good. They wouldn't take kind to him eating their kind, but then humans ate chicken which 'they' felt were less intelligent and more inferior to themselves despite being more of them on the planet so what he was doing to humans was no different, and yet they called him a monster.

1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, the noise! Was it even real or just a torment inside his head? No one believed it was real they just assumed he was insane. He placed his hands on his head again and pressed down trying to make it go away. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. It was growing stronger; it had never been this strong. When he was in his other forms it had been there, it was subtle at first, but with each body with each regeneration, it seemed to become louder and slowly grew more tangible until now, now it was constantly going on, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. The only time it ever stopped was when he was dead, but then everything else had stopped and it seemed without the drums he was nothing, oh he had missed them. When they finally came back he knew he was alive again. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, he didn't want to die again he didn't want to go back to the darkness, the never ending darkness that scared him even more then the drums.

All of this had started on Gallifrey when he was a child, only eight years old. He was taken for initiation into the academy to become a Timelord. He stood in front of the Untempered Schism, a gap in reality through you can see the whole vortex. Then it started, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, subtlety it even went away at times so he could think but it always returned tormenting him, go away! Why won't you go away? 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, stop it! 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, all his life! 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, stop it, stop it! STOP IT! 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4!

_Why won't it stop?_

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**Authors Notes:** Don't know if anyone else thought of it but that is my explanation for why the master had these strange abilities in the End of Time.

**More coming…**


	2. Where it all started

**Where it all started...**

Years ago on the planet Gallifeyan, a young Gallifreyan who would soon be a novice Timelord walked towards his destiny accompanied by distinguished Timelords of the Prydonian Chapter. They were marvellous in their red robes and ceremonial head dresses and caps. They all stood around him as he approached his destiny, he was honoured yet at the same time he was nervous, he was told what would happen what he might see.

He was going for initiation into the Timelord academy he was going to see the Untempered Schism and he was excited and yet frightened at the same time. His friend, his best friend had stood in front of this Schism, and he had looked frightened, scared of it, that's what scared him the most right now, what would he see? The Timelords just stood around him and watched as his eight year old friend saw the whole of time and space. He could only imagine what it was like to see the universe, to visit these places.

He and his friend were always getting into trouble. They would often sneak outside the citadel and visit the 'outsiders' in the outskirts of Gallifrey something Timelords frowned upon, but they wanted to explore to see more of Gallifrey not just the tiny bubble the citadel stood under, they wanted to see what was out there, on the next horizon and the horizon after that. Just keep going and going and going.

It was now his turn to view the Schism and the Timelords walked with him towards it. It wasn't as impressive as he was lead to believe, it was smaller then he expected but looked no less magnificent, a small circular shape inside which the vortex rushed and twisted past. The Timelords motioned for him to step forward to view this spectacle of Timelord invention. He turned to one of the Timelords next to him unsure, but the Timelord just nodded in encouragement for him to take the step forward and see space and time.

He took a few steps forward and stood there watching the blue vortex whirl past the window, the gap, the Untempered Schism. Then he realised he couldn't take his eyes off it, he felt it, felt its power rising in his body, the power of all space and time coursing through him and as he watched visions and pictures of places he had never seen, times he had never known came rushing into his head. He wasn't nervous anymore because what he was seeing… it was magnificent. He could see all space and time in all its complexity, all its glory, all its beauty. It's sheer size, its sheer wonder. He could see everything and he meant everything, the entire universe from its explosive start to its cold end and all the time, all years, days, seconds in between. He could see all of time, all that is, all that was, all that ever could be, should not and never could at all, this is what a Timelord saw every day of their lives, all of it... all of this was rushing through his head. Time and space, it… it was beautiful.

1-2-3-4, what? What was that? 1-2-3-4 What is that? 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 Drumming? 1-2-3-4, what was this? 1-2-3-4, what did this mean? Was he supposed to hear this? 1-2-3-4, Was it a warriors march? 1-2-3-4, stop it 1-2-3-4, stop it 1-2-3-4, stop it I don't want to listen to this, it hurts me! 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, stop it, stop it! stop it! 1-2-3-4 STOP IT! 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4.

_SOMEBODY PLEASE…! MAKE IT STOP!_

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**Authors Notes:** This was a hard one to write, hope everyone likes it.

**More to come soon…**


	3. The Prisoner

**The Prisoner**

One, Two, Three, Four, One, Two, Three, Four, he was really starting to put on weight, One, Two, Three, Four, One, Two, Three, Four. He stopped, he'd reached his limit for the day.

He got up off the rowing machine and scooped up a towel from a nearby chair and patted his head down. 2 months of being imprisoned took its toll on your health, limited movement meant he wasn't burning the excess energy he took in through food and drink. He was imprisoned not only on this fourth rate planet orbiting a third rate star, but on a minuscule island off the coast of a slightly larger island, but more specifically imprisoned in this room. The prison island –because it didn't really have name- was a high security establishment where he was being held, isolated from the rest of the world and the universe. He was the only occupant so he considered it flattering that they had gone to such lengths to keep him locked away yet were civilised enough to keep him comfortable and well fed.

He was in here for multiple reasons, mass murder, deception and manipulation of government officials and that he keeps trying to either conquer this world or destroy it for his own gain. But he had been caught when his last plan for ultimate power had failed thanks to the Doctor, if only he hadn't interfered he'd have been ruler and master of this little blue world by now instead of locked up in a tiny corner of it.

The Doctor used to be his friend, his best friend, but they had both followed a different path since their time at the academy. They had both stolen TARDIS's and fled their home world of Gallifrey only the Doctor had travelled because he wanted to see the universe and was intent on using his superior intellect to fight against the evil he saw in the universe. While he, 'the Master' as he had decided to name himself, wanted to conquer the universe. He knew ideally the Doctor wanted to bring peace to all the worlds of the universe but the Master knew very well that peace would not be brought about by words, but with actions. He would unite the entire universe under his banner and rule through out all space and time. No need for wars or deaths or famine or plague, but such a universe would need a strong ruler and who better then himself. Of course people didn't always agree with his vision so unfortunately those who stood in his way had to be disposed of.

While they both travelled the universe the Doctor had been stupid enough to get caught by the Timelords as he tried to help a band of humans return to their own respectable time periods. The Timelords had returned all the humans but they had also caught the Doctor and put him on trial, first for stealing a TARDIS the second for interfering in the affairs of other planets which was the most important and golden rule of space and time travelling according to the Timelords. They had sentenced the Doctor to exile on earth and with his own TARDIS disabled he was trapped here. Except for when the Timelords wanted him to do something, then they allowed him to visit somewhere of their choosing for a mission. He was basically their puppet while the Master remained free to continue his plans.

Now though the Doctor and he were both in the same boat, both trapped on Earth but in a cruel twist of irony the Doctor now had much more freedom then him, because the Doctor still had the freedom of the entire planet, while he, the Master only had freedom within these four walls.

The Master had once had a chance to force the universe to accept him as their ruler. He had discovered a secret weapon on a distant planet capable of turning a star, supernova. However the Doctor had arrived, sent by the Timelords to stop him. The Master was generous to offer his old friend an equal share in the universe, to rule as equals and bring peace. But the Doctor had to have that stubborn streak of absolute goodness and out right refused. The Doctor was never going to agree with him on the subject of universal conquest so unfortunately he would have die eventually.

But after several encounters the Doctor had bested him completely. He had been defeated quite a few times by the Doctor but had always managed to escape capture in the end, but the last time they had met, the Doctor and his friends at UNIT had captured him. He supposed statistically there had to be a time when he would be caught by the primitives, but he didn't intend on living in this room through out his entire regeneration cycle. He could regenerate and change his body but that would be a waste and too many questions would be asked which would eventually lead to the Doctor or one of his associates identifying him still as the Master. He had a plan but he just needed to be patient, he wouldn't remain locked up for long, or what these primitives considered long.

There was a knock at the large metal door which held him in this room, the jingle of keys and the door creaked open as a guard came in carrying a tray of what was to be his breakfast.

"Breakfast!" he half bellowed as if he was trying to sound intimidating or important, curious how these creatures always tried to make themselves superior to the others in any way possible, mostly by shouting when really they were no different to the next primitive over evolved ape they stood next to, it was pathetic.

"Oh, just put it down on the table would you, my dear chap" he said indicating the small plastic table in the middle of the room. Despite this human's arrogance he decided he might as well play the role of the gentleman prisoner, it all worked into his plan to eventually escape. The guard placed the tray on the table and was about to walk off.

"Just a moment" he called and the guard turned to face him but did not speak "New here are you?"

"Just started a few days ago" he said regarding him with suspicion. The Master took a few steps towards him and the guard un-shouldered his gun and pointed it at him. The Master gently raised his hands coolly.

"Oh no need for that my dear fellow" he said as he looked directly in this over evolved apes eyes "I won't hurt you, everything will be fine" and fixed him with an intense stare and dropped his voice so it was low and half mesmeric "everything will be fine…" he said softly. The guard just stared at him and said nothing. He continued slowly in his soft speaking mesmeric voice "I am the Master, and you will obey me, you will obey me, you – will – o-bey – me" the guard didn't speak "Now, there has been a terrible mistake, you will release me at once" The guard remained silent, but broke into a smug looking smile.

"Nice try, mate" he said motioning with his gun for the Master to get back, which he did. The guard then left his quarters closed and locked the door with the jingle of keys. It was worth a try at least, he was a prisoner so they had to expect the odd attempt to escape now and again.

He sighed as he sat down to eat his breakfast. He had long ago mastered the art of hypnotism but these guards and soldiers here were trained to be immune to his powers. But he had other ways of bending people to his will, it was easy as long as you applied pressure in the right place, most applied that pressure by threatening to kill them but was often a bad idea he found, but there are other ways to apply pressure, kidnap and threaten to kill a loved one for example, promise them riches beyond the dreams of avarist, or even just play on their fear, their compassion, their patriotism. Humans could really be a bunch of gullible…

1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, oh no, not this annoying noise again, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, he mentally pushed on it to clear it from his mind. This noise had tormented him all the way through the academy. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. Strange but the noise gave him the suitable image in his mind of man in prison rattling a cup across the bars, but he would not let these stupid rhythms, this stupid drumming affect him. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, it was fading again as he continued to push harder and harder until it was barely noticeable.

It had been coming and going again and again ever since he had looked into the Untemperd Schism. For a while it hurt his head but it had faded to merge with his own background thoughts where he could basically ignore it. But it kept coming back and he had to constantly push it away to keep his mind clear. He had tried to seek help, to make sense of it all but they were just as confused as he was. None of the other Timelords heard this noise so he assumed it was something unique to him and him alone.

It was as if something was calling to him and every time he regenerated it became just a little bit more tangible and with each incarnation it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep pushing it aside. The Master pushed these thoughts out of his mind for now, he had the drumming under control and he could think clearly.

He picked up the paper, yesterdays paper which the guards had graciously provided today and decided to tuck into his high fat, protein and carbohydrate mixture these humans called food.

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**Authors notes: **I haven't labeled which Master Delgado's Master was since it's never explained on the TV series and some of the books have conflicting ideas.

Cheers to mad eye harry for pointing out a mistake which I have since corrected


	4. Dead to the World

**Warning**: This will contain spoilers to 'the Deadly Assassin'

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**Dead to the World**

Pain, pain, pain!

Even sitting still he felt pain, constant, constant pain!

He, the Master sat perfectly still on a chair in a very dark room, the pain!

He breathed in and out slowly, even the rise and fall of his chest felt like hot needles poking into his chest. He parted his dark tattered cloak and allowed a mutilated, skinless and scared hand to emerge from it and pick up a needle containing the Timelord equivalent of aesthetic. He pressed the needle into his arm, the pain it produced was nothing compared to what his entire arm was feeling already.

The chemical would dull his pain but it wouldn't make it completely go away, it would always remain for the rest of his life, because he couldn't regenerate this was his last body, his 13th and final incarnation and now he had to suffer being sealed inside this shell he currently called a body and it wouldn't heal, his body was far too damaged from the event which inflicted him with these injuries. He was permanently scared beyond recognition as anything which could even be called 'living'.

His face had been completely dissolved away and was completely unrecognisable as the bearded cunning man he had once been. His appearance was not pleasant to look at either because he didn't posses a face as such anymore. You actually saw the surface of what is his skull, which was stained green, moist and scabbed and was partially hidden under the shadow of his tattered hooded cloak. His skull was incapable of any facial expression other then what looked like the slight hint of anger because of the way his brow –or what was left of it- hung over his eyes, and anyone thinking that would be right, that's exactly how he felt though it was not intentional, it was just the way his face looked.

His eyes also had no choice but to stare into space, he had no eyelids so he was unable to blink and they were unable to move, he was fixed looking in one direction. Just trying to move his eyes sent a spike of pain through his head like someone pushing cold needles into his brain from his eye sockets to the back of his head. He wished he could blink, how he wished he could just have the satisfaction of blinking.

Even the thudding of his own hearts hurt him so. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, the pain he felt from them was like he was having a double heart attack. Worst still, a vein in his head pulsated to this rhythm, the rhythm of his hearts bets which were similar to those stubborn drums he keeps hearing. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, went his hearts shooting pain over his chest 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, pulsed the vein against his skull, echoing his hearts and sending sparks of pain across his brain. It was more maddening then the drums themselves, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4.

He raised his own hand slowly to his temple but fell short of touching it, if he did he'd feel more pain then the drums could give him. He eased his breathing to slow his hearts rates, the slower they beat the less pressure and the less frequent that vein pulsated. He had to concede that if he did die then both the pain and the annoying drums would stop once and for all. But he wasn't beaten yet, his body may look like a dead rotting corpse and though he may still be dying he could still potentially save his own life.

He had returned to Gallifrey with help from a council official who wanted to gain power. Every life form in the universe seemed to want to gain power, rise up their pitiful hierarchies and stand on top to look down at the rest with contempt. He'd promised this council official who was called Goth that he, the Master would help him get what he wants, to become Lord President of Gallifrey and the Master would share all his knowledge of the vast universe he had explored with him, but there was a price.

Goth had found him on Tersurus and had since smuggled him back to Gallifrey where he wanted help in his scheme to extend his life. The Master theorised he could use a power source hidden underneath the Panopticon. A power source so old it had passed into legend, Rassilons Star, the star that was imploded centuries ago to make time travel for the early Gallifreyans a reality, the Eye of Harmony.

According to legend Rassilon became immortal, though he was supposedly dead and buried in a tomb in the Death Zone thousands of miles outside the citadel. But the Master had educated guesses on how Rassilon might've obtained immortality if indeed he had. The ceremonial sash of Rassilon, something the Timelords thought was just decoration and a symbol of office was in fact a marvel of engineering. It prevented its wearer from being sucked into the event horizon of a black hole, specifically the black hole that was the Eye of Harmony itself.

He would open the Eye and using the sash he could convert its vast energy stores to extend his life possibly indefinitely and the extra energy might trigger an often theorised, and some would considered fatal, 13th regeneration. But with all that extra energy from the Eye for his 13th regeneration to feed off he theorised it would regenerate him without killing him.

A side effect of course was the destruction of Gallifrey and the Timelords themselves as they would be sucked into the Eye when he opened it. A side effect he would be satisfied with, he wanted revenge on the Timelords, it was them who made him look into the Untemperd Schism, their fault he was hearing the sound of drums, their fault he had been humiliated so many times by sending the Doctor to defeat him at every turn, he even cursed the Timelord who thought 12 regenerations was enough for a lifetime.

Councillor Goth didn't know his plan would destroy Gallifrey however, nor did the Master want him to know. He knew how the high council of Timelords worked. Goth would betray him as soon as he became president and no matter what the Master would say there was officially no evidence connecting Goth to him and considering the Timelords often 'adjust' the truth and history to make its council members appear heroic the Master wouldn't stand a chance. He used Goth as long as he remained useful and if he even showed a hint of betrayal, then lets just say he was not as infirm as he looked and even though his body was dying his brain still operated perfectly.

The pain that wracked his body left him as he began to stand up from his chair, his movements were sluggish and slow because he still felt pain, the chemical only served to dull it but it was still there. His throbbing vein began to fade, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 and he relaxed his aching body, soon he will be free of this rotting shell of a body and be reborn anew.

1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, ah blast, they kept coming back 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. The drums, the drums the never ending drum beat! He wasn't just feeling that stubborn vein in his head echoing the beating of his own hearts, now he had to feel the real drumming in his head. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. He pushed it away trying to distance it again, suppress it. When his body was wracked with pain he couldn't hear them clearly, the pain his head felt already dampened them but as soon as he injects those pain killers into his blood stream the pain died but the drums kept coming back and they were even more difficult then before to push away because he found it difficult to concentrate.

He got up and began walking 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, go away I'm busy! He didn't know what he preferred, the pain or the drums but one or the other had to go, and since he's been living with the drums his whole life he'd settle for the drums any day.

The Master had plans to attend to. Goth had gone to send a signal to the Doctor to summon him to Gallifrey and while the Doctor was in the vortex the Master intended to send him a vision of what he had planned. Knowing the Doctor he'd try to prevent it, but would unwittingly fall into his trap and end up begin caught and accused of the horrendous act the Master had planned. He would have the Doctor humiliated and executed by the very people who kept sending him to foil his plans.

In a way though he felt this would not satisfy his now burning hatred for the Doctor. In the past he had regarded their little rivalry, their intellectual battles almost as a game where they pitted themselves against each others wits. The price usually was high, universal domination, the fate of a planet, these high stakes would've made winning these games all the more satisfying for him. But at every turn the Doctor had defeated him. The Master was now beyond playing games, he wanted revenge on the Doctor and would get it at almost any cost and he didn't care if he personally caused his end or not, as long as he could watch it, know his enemy was dead then he would be satisfied.

1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, the drums went as if to remind him to then turn his attention on the Timelords. They will feel his vengeance directly when he sinks his fingers into the Eye of Harmony. The gravitational forces it produced will cause untold chaos across the planet, the cloister bells of each and every Time Capsule on the planet would ring out deafeningly to sound the death of Gallifrey.

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**Authors notes:** This is probably one of my favourite versions of the Master because we never got to see enough of him in the TV series.


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